The Comforter

I give my witness that the living Christ sends the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to those we are pledged to help Him comfort

Overall this talk isn’t bad.  It’s meant to comfort those who need comfort, and mourn with those who mourn.  It’s the purpose of religion to deal with life’s hard questions and to cope with things.  Some individuals view this as a crutch, but even if it is, sometimes crutches are necessary.

Many are praying to Heavenly Father for relief, for help in carrying their burdens of grief, loneliness, and fear. Heavenly Father hears those prayers and understands their needs. He and His Beloved Son, the resurrected Jesus Christ, have promised help.

If the religion centered around this concept, rather than lists of do’s and don’ts and judgemental, false concepts as we’ve seen in other talks, I don’t think many people would take issue with it.

A great change began in your heart when you came into the Church. You made a covenant, and you received a promise that began changing your very nature.

We were so close.  We were just discussing comfort and God carring, and we’re back to “Mormons are more special than other people”.  Not just Mormons, but LDS members only.  This is the problem.  Why does it have to be that LDS people are more special than others, even in being comforted?

That is why you have a feeling to want to help a person struggling to move forward under a load of grief and difficulty.

We’ve moved into dickhead land.  No, being a member of the church is not why you want to help a person who grieves.  That’s human.  That’s part of the natural man.  It’s not unique to members of the church, nor do church members get an added measure of empathy.  Anyone who claims otherwise, I’d love to see your numbers and evidence for the claim.

Recently three generations of a family were grieving at the death of a five-year-old boy. He died accidentally while with his family on a vacation… I watched the way the Lord made their great burden lighter.

Here is the thing, this is his family, and his story, and he is testifying what he witnessed. He’s allowed to do that.  But there is not evidence that God comes down for some individuals and not others.  And there is no explanation why God didn’t lift the burden by not having the boy die.

It’s a fair thing for him to say, but for the people who are crossing out of Syria, trying to find refuge in any place that will take them, having lost everything, including, typically, multiple family members, this talk of comfort must sound very dickish… “My God comforts us over accidents, while yours lets you suffer!  If only you followed my God you’d feel comfort”.

Death sucks.  It sucks for everyone.  Thinking that there is an eternity, that’s nice, and comforting, but it’s a claim that exists in all religions.  No this is claiming that “LDS Mormons get more comfort than everyone else, because God really does help them more”. And with the suffering in the world, the talk goes from “We should comfort everyone because that’s human” to “We are more special-er than everyone else”.

Which is a pity because it started out on such a nice premise.